


The House on Brecken Hill

by entanglednow



Category: Being Human
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-08-24
Updated: 2009-08-24
Packaged: 2017-10-17 10:15:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,582
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/175762
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/entanglednow/pseuds/entanglednow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's where he'd choose move to if he lived up to absolutely every cliche ever written about vampires.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The House on Brecken Hill

It's really only the tail end of a particularly bad day when the last two trains are cancelled.

George had spent a good half an hour trying to work around Mitchell's morbid fear of buses, with little success. Mitchell’s morbid fear of buses has had a long time to take hold and it isn't suppressed easily.

So, granted, it is partly Mitchell's fault that they're now stuck walking home from the middle of nowhere.

But the world had decided they still hadn't been punished enough, and now it was raining. If Mitchell had known he was going to be walking in the rain he'd have brought a hat, and a bigger coat, and more enthusiasm.

As it is he's running on empty and he's really not in the mood.

George is see-sawing insanely between glumness and optimism. Neither of which are making him feel any better.

His shoes are making _squeak, squeak, slosh_ noises, though give it another mile or two and they'll be a ' _squelch_ ' somewhere in there too. He's not looking forward to the ' _squelch_ ' making an appearance.

He doesn't have happy memories associated with being soaking wet.

"We don't get to see the country very often. Well not both of us anyway. Sometimes it's nice to be surrounded by nature," George says, with a sort of careful enthusiasm. Mitchell can't help but prod it until it deflates.

"I think I trod in some of it back there," he says unhappily. He's not a huge fan of nature.

George sighs.

Mitchell pulls his collar up, though it doesn't help in the slightest, rain still falls through his hair and runs down the back of his neck in hideously invasive trails.

Wet over his clothes and wet under his clothes, after a few minutes it doesn't really matter any more.

He also has a horrible nagging suspicions that George is lost.

"Do you actually know which way we're supposed to be walking?"

"I think it's this way," George says, and how he manages to be certain about indecision is a complete mystery to Mitchell.

"You think? You're supposed to be _good_ at this."

"I'm not a homing pigeon." George's voice wavers between annoyance and genuine offence.

"Yeah, but you usually have some idea which way we're supposed to be going." Mitchell bumps him with an elbow and George briefly wobbles on the verge with all the grace of a penguin.

George suffers in silence for their trudge up a hill that cheerfully proclaims itself as ' _Brecken Hill_ ' though where the hell that is in relation to absolutely anywhere else, Mitchell doesn't have a clue.

"There's something through there," George says through the rain.

"Through where?"

George points over the hedge to his left.

"I think I saw a chimney through the trees."

They keep their eyes directed over the hedge as they get to the top of the hill. George is right, there's a flash of chimney and the dark jut of architecture every time there's a gap in the foliage.

When they reach the top the trees thin out enough for them to see across the field.

The house looms in the distance, like it's been lurking there, just waiting to scare ramblers.

It's a huge dark mass of grey brick and dirty windows, angular juts of stone that give the house a broken and threatening feel to it. The roof is sharp and ragged, in a way that makes it look not so much like a roof as a shroud for the rest of the house. It is, without doubt, as close to a horror movie house as Mitchell has ever seen in real life.

It's where he'd choose to move to if he lived up to absolutely every cliche ever written about vampires.

"Jesus," Mitchell decides.

"It's very..."

Mitchell is honestly curious to know how George is going to finish that sentence.

"It's terrifying," he admits finally.

"It's out of the rain," Mitchell says sensibly, and honestly, also truthfully.

The closer they get the less enthusiastic George is. If this were an episode of _Location, Location, Location_ the lovely couple would be crying about now.

"I think I'd rather get wet," George says, there are rain spots all over his glasses and the drip on his nose is trying its best to become a stream.

"You already are wet George, very wet, and so am I."

"Which is exactly the sort of reason we shouldn't trust a big creepy house in the middle of nowhere."

"Because we're wet?" Mitchell's confused.

"Because we're wet, and we're not thinking straight, and that's exactly the sort of time people are lured to their deaths."

Mitchell raises an eyebrow at him, the rain ruins the effect somewhat by immediately plastering half his hair to his face.

"By creepy old houses?"

"By axe murderers?" George declares, Mitchell can't resist a smile, even if it does get him a mouthful of rainwater, because he's perfectly aware that George has just plucked that randomly out of the air. "I'm just saying it's not-"

George's voice falls into silence, because Mitchell has taken off across the field in soaking wet shoes towards the house.

Yeah, there's the _'squelch.'_

"Mitchell!"

Mitchell decides George can either follow him or stand in the foliage and get very wet.

George chooses to follow.

He catches up when Mitchell starts peering through the windows.

"Should you be doing that?" George is whispering, Mitchell is not entirely sure why, though he finds it horribly amusing anyway.

"It doesn't look like there's anyone home."

"Because the house probably ate them," George says miserably.

Mitchell stares at him through the rain.

They gradually get wetter.

George eventually sighs and reluctantly lets Mitchell steer him across the soaking wet grass towards the main door to _Hell House_.

Mitchell raises his hand to knock, George catches it in mid-air.

"I don't think this is a good idea."

"Why not?" It seems a perfectly sensible idea to Mitchell considering.

"Because this never ends well for the people that knock on the doors of creepy old houses." George's voice has developed that amusing pitch it gets when he's trying to be frightened and sensible at the same time.

"George we're not exactly classic horror movie victims?" Mitchell points out.

"Exactly how many horror movies have you seen, do you remember who dies at the end of all of them?"

George has a point.

"You have a point there. Though we're usually done in by a village mob carrying flaming torches."

George still hasn't let go of his arm.

"George, it's just a house. Honestly, what could be in there that's worse than us?"

George seems to think about the question seriously for a minute.

"Frankenstein," he offers finally, though more as a thought exercise than a genuine fear of a giant stitched together green man with bolts in his neck.

He lets Mitchell's arm go.

Mitchell, just for the hell of it, tries the door instead of knocking.

It isn't locked, which is a little surprising. But the way it creaks open like the last hoarse rasp of a dying man isn't particularly.

George makes an uncomfortable noise.

"Hello?" Mitchell calls out.

"Mitchell!" George snatches his jacket.

"There's no one here," he protests.

"No one human."

"I hate to break it to you, but there _still_ isn't anyone human," Mitchell points out.

"We're still technically breaking and entering."

"Entering maybe, there wasn't any actual breaking involved." Mitchell thinks about it for a minute. "Can you be charged with just _entering_?"

"Yes, it's called trespassing," George adds straight away.

Mitchell grunts surprise and disappears through the doorway, leaving George briefly spluttering protest and panic in the rain.

The foyer is huge, so Mitchell heads right, into what looks like a study, though there's no paper, or bookcases.

It's a dusty room full of ticking clocks and threadbare carpets, which may have once been hideously expensive. Before they become lunch to beetles. Now they're just hideous.

"It's not just creepy from the outside," George says behind him, in a voice that perfectly mingles surprise and unease.

Mitchell wonders whether he should admit he kind of likes it.

"Maybe we were wrong, maybe someone did live here but they died, and no one came to check on them. They're probably mouldering away in a room upstairs-"

George stops talking when Mitchell presses him into a dusty length of the wall and kisses him.

There's a brief muffled sound of surprised protest, and then George has a hand on the back of his head.

Mitchell's hair is wet and tangled, though George doesn't seem to mind. He slips his fingers into it, his noise of protest turning into a not at all reluctant noise of surrender.

It takes him a long second to pull away, to notice that Mitchell has backed him into one of the ominously ticking clocks.

"I don't think this is the best place-"

Mitchell laughs into George's mouth.

"Oh, I don't know, I think it's kind of appropriate." Mitchell kisses him again, then drifts off across the floorboards, which creak under his feet, leaving wet grassy footprints as he goes.

"What if there is someone here?" George has regained enough sense to worry again.

"Like an axe murderer?" Mitchell hazards.

"No, no, not necessarily, possibly just someone hiding somewhere, who may or may not mean us harm."

"Then we'll eat them."

"That's not funny Mitchell."

Mitchell and his laughter drift deeper into the darkness of the house.

"Mitchell!"


End file.
